Ballots for Bullets? Disabled Veterans and the Right to Vote

Belt, Rabia, Stanford Law Review

Table of Contents Introduction I. Creating the Home A. Appeals for an Asylum B. Open for Business C. Home Life II. Disability and War A. War and Amputations B. War Trauma III. "There Is No Disguising It, Boys; the People Are Afraid of Us!" A. A Population of Dependents B. "Like Monkeys in a Zoo": Veterans and Disgust IV. Disenfranchising Veterans: The Cases A. Civil War Voting and Its Legacy B. Local Distrust C. Legal Obstacles to the Vote D. Jurisdictional Hurdles E. Charity or Benefit? Conclusion

Introduction

Uriah Carpenter expected to be able to vote. Like any other potential voter in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1892, Carpenter registered, took an oath, and arrived at his polling place. (1) But Carpenter's attempt to vote was rejected. His offense? His residence. Carpenter lived in the Michigan Soldiers' Home, and the election officials believed that his residence in the institution meant that he was not a legitimate citizen of Grand Rapids. (2) Carpenter sued, claiming a violation of his right to vote. (3) He thus became part of a stream of Civil War veterans who challenged their disenfranchisement--and lost.

"Old Hank" Rose planned to vote, too. (4) He used to live in the Michigan Soldiers' Home as well, but the Home expelled Rose for refusing to bathe. (5) He then lived in an eight-by-ten square foot shanty with a "lame mule, pigs and a dog, sleeping on some filthy rags in a corner." (6) After he lost his shanty, "[f]or about two years he lived in a fence corner with a few boards to shelter him and a stove that furnished heat in the winter time." (7) Finally, he took up shelter on "an old couch amidst a number of old farming implements and under a roof, which [wa]s suspended in mid air by two old rookeries on either side of it." (8) Rose was an unwelcome newcomer to the town of Mason. The Detroit Free Press recounted that "people in whose vicinity he has resided have always persisted in trying to make him be clean." (9) At one point, "some young men carried him down to a lake where they dipped him in, scrubbed him good, shaving and cutting his hair. Aftre [sic] he had donned a new suit of soldier's clothes, he looked real nice, it is said, but it did not last long." (10)

Rose was an avid political enthusiast. Though once a Democrat, receipt of his full military pension of $12 per month had occasioned a switch: "Ever since he has been a stanch [sic] Republican, having been told that the G.O.P. secured the money for him. At that time he lived near Dansville, and the 'Demmies' there didn't like it a bit because of Hank's change of politics." (11) The day before the election, some townspeople from nearby Mason "kidnaped [sic] the old fellow, carrying him at least twenty miles from home, where he was turned loose." (12) Nevertheless, "[j]ust before the polls closed the next day, weary and footsore, old Hank limped into the voting booth by the aid of his faithful cane. He had walked most of the distance back." (13) The next year, the townspeople tried again, this time "blindfolding him, and zigzagging about the country." (14) Rose again managed to find his way back to the town. (15)

According to conventional scholarly wisdom, none of this should have happened. Carpenter's legal disenfranchisement and the attempted guerilla disenfranchisement of Rose run contrary to a longstanding, multidisciplinary consensus on the privileged place of disabled veterans in American law, politics, and society. Veterans are central to two major developments in U.S. history: the creation of the social welfare state and the democratization of voting. (16) Many scholars have discussed the democratizing effects of war and the positive benefits given to veterans. (17) In this Article, I show that, contrary to what this consensus suggests, the very war injuries that the veterans experienced and the welfare benefits they received actually undercut their political rights. …

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